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Analysis on global issuesTue, 14 Aug 2018 18:22:47 -0400en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.3Football, Politics, and Sustaining Peace in Africahttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/football-politics-sustaining-peace-africa/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/football-politics-sustaining-peace-africa/#respondTue, 14 Aug 2018 17:50:46 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18103]]>For sports enthusiasts, 2018 was an eventful year with both the Winter Olympics and FIFA World Cup taking place in the span of five months. For Africans, football is a celebrated sport, but also intimately connected to sociopolitical realities. From the successful presidential candidacy of former football player George Weah in Liberia, to the rise of Egypt’s professional footballer Mohamed Salah as one of the most influential figures on the continent, to France’s World Cup victory being celebrated by many as a “win for Africa,” the ostensibly apolitical space of football is often a home for political conversations. In contexts where freedom of expression is limited, political apathy is rampant, or common voices are marginalized, Africans are increasingly turning to football to engage in covert conversations regarding their struggles, aspirations, and vision for peace.

Much has been documented about the impact of sports on politics, diplomacy, and even peacebuilding. Popular sports events and platforms have been used to amplify political messages, pacify tensions in flagging diplomatic relations, and break the ice over nuclear stand-offs. The recent détente between North and South Korea where the Olympic games was used to signify a renewed intent for nuclear negotiations is one of many examples. However, sports diplomacy research and narratives have been highly state-centric, focusing mainly on the impact of sports on interstate relations. In the African context, where many governments fail to serve as legitimate representatives of the people and where states are often captured by elite enclaves, well or ill-elected, it is important to note the impact of sports at the grassroots level.

The grassroots significance of sports is particularly relevant from a peacebuilding perspective, given that peace, like a tree, tends to grow from the bottom up. There has been a remarkable decline in violent conflict across Africa in the past decade, however this has not always been equated to peace. As Johan Galtung noted, there is a difference between negative peace, or the absence of physical violence, and positive peace, the absence of both physical and structural violence. Negative peace is unstable and is often beset by frequent conflict relapses, fueling inconspicuous forms of oppression and unanswered legitimate grievances. It is in these contexts that football has become an avenue for expression and dialogue that challenges existing state structures and paradigms and ultimately enables peaceful aspirations to find a home.

Take, for example, the case of Egypt where military and ruling elites have stifled all avenues for authentic political dissent and participation. In an act of defiance, youth are shifting political conversations to unconventional platforms. In the days leading up to Egypt’s presidential election in March, the internet was replete with images and memes endorsing Mohamed Salah for president. When the election results were released, it appeared that over 1 million Egyptians voted for Salah in a serendipitous and relatively uncoordinated act of protest, making him “the surprise runner-up.” While many may dismiss these acts as facetious jests, it does not negate the reality that Salah has become Egypt’s most unifying and significant public figure. His influence cuts across class, religion, and politics; all of which are highly divisive factors in Egyptian society since the revolutionary events of 2011. His moderate yet visible practice of Islam is admired by even the most radical religious actors, his patriotism and generous donations praised by secularists and nationalists alike, his skill and successes abroad a source of pride for the youth, and his modest rural upbringing resonates with the masses struggling to maneuver their way out of poverty and alienation. At a time when political repression has almost entirely stifled opposition and produced a leadership deficit in the country, he has emerged to fill a void and restore national pride.

Another example of the interconnectedness of football and politics is the recent victory of George Weah, Liberia’s footballer-turned-president. Weah’s victory was equally celebrated by anti-establishment advocates desperately awaiting a chance for new actors to penetrate the political landscape, and by marginalized youth who played a pivotal role in running his campaign. When Weah was criticized for not being educated enough to run the country after losing in the 2012 elections, he went back to school and earned a university degree, setting a noble example for youth across the nation. Weah has often been compared to Didier Drogba, another African football player who transformed his nation’s future. Drogba is credited with bringing peace to Côte d’Ivoire by ending a 10-year civil war. On live television, moments after leading his nation’s team into the 2006 World Cup, Drogba fell to his knees and begged warring factions to disarm. Within a week, his brazen plea was met with a ceasefire and elections, a task that African leaders and experienced diplomats had failed to achieve.

Beyond simply the politics at hand in the above examples, other situations demonstrate how football can also be instrumentalized as a tool for peacebuilding and sustaining peace. An underlying premise of sustaining peace is that every society, no matter how fragile or broken it may appear, has innate capabilities and assets that are conducive for peace. This calls for a paradigm shift from focusing on the sources of conflict and emphasizing what is not working, to identifying avenues for peace by mapping what is working in peoples’ lives. When situated within this framework, it is apparent that football is one of the few avenues capable of transcending widespread tensions and fostering a sense of unity, birthing leaders who grant a voice to alienated and marginalized sectors of society and revitalizing hope in times of widespread national despair. As noted by Nelson Mandela, who used sport to unite a racially divided South Africa, “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments.”

The potential of football in orchestrating social transformation is often underestimated. Its unique impact in Africa stems from the fact that it is a relatively apolitical space, less influenced by political subversion, censorship, and venality. Attempts to deploy football within a sustaining peace framework should seek to strengthen sports institutions, while simultaneously protecting their autonomy from state control and exploitation. Closer attention should be paid to the conversations and movements manifesting from football institutions to forecast political scenarios and gain a sense of popular opinions and aspirations. Sports institutions can also be used as a public communication tool and respected football figures could serve as peace ambassadors who can reach out to the public in times of tension and promote the values of tolerance, mutual respect, diversity, and unity both on and off the field. More resources should be diverted towards sports institutions, especially those that prove to be effective catalysts for inclusion and hope.

Politics in Africa and other places manifests itself from the upper echelons of government down to everyday social interactions. It can often trigger intense emotion, and violent divisions. Of the many avenues available to bridge these divides in Africa, few things, if any, can channel collective and positive efforts more than football. If peacebuilding and sustaining peace is about inclusion, amplifying marginalized voices, and transforming otherwise violent scenarios into non-violent conversations, then taking advantage of the spaces football creates is essential.

Radwa Saad is a program associate at the Research and Policy Department at the Partnership for African Social and Governance Research (PASGR), an alumni of the African Leadership Centre (ALC), and a 2017 African Junior Fellow at the International Peace Institute (IPI).

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/football-politics-sustaining-peace-africa/feed/0Nicaragua’s Uprising: From Dictatorship, to Revolution, to Dictatorshiphttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/nicaragua-uprising-from-dictatorship-to-revolution-to-dictatorship/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/nicaragua-uprising-from-dictatorship-to-revolution-to-dictatorship/#respondFri, 10 Aug 2018 16:43:46 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18095]]>The origins of Nicaragua’s current political crisis are well known by now. It all started in April of this year when two sets of protests were met with contempt, only to be followed with outright repression by the government of President Daniel Ortega and his vice-president and wife, Rosario Murillo. The first protest involved young activists who called out the government’s negligence to stop a fire that destroyed more than 5,000 hectares of one of the country’s most precious biological reserves. The second involved university students, workers, and activists opposing a controversial pension reform that would increase workers’ contributions while cutting their benefits.

By the end of the month, the fire had been extinguished and Ortega had decided to drop the pension reform. The protests, however, had by then spiraled into more ambitious, radical, and ultimately, revolutionary demands. The governments’ use of indiscriminate force against demonstrators ignited thousands of Nicaraguans to demand that Ortega and Murillo step down and to call early elections, originally set for 2021. Building on the country’s revolutionary past, Nicaraguans have built barricades. They have taken their discontent to the streets and armed themselves with homemade weapons, confronting the police and paramilitary forces. The government has also pursued tactics from the past, including some of those used by Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship and the contra-revolutionaries; namely police repression, forced disappearances, and paramilitary operations.

Today, Ortega claims to have returned the country onto a path to peace. His government recently regained control of the towns and university campuses that had been barricaded by protesters. Yet, he has done so only through the imprisonment, disappearance, and elimination of political opponents. The country’s National Assembly, controlled by Ortega’s party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), passed a new anti-terrorist law in July that is being used to criminalize political dissent. Next to this “legal” means of repression, illegal ones continue. Doctors are being purged for treating protesters; anti-government businessmen are having their lands invaded by pro-Ortega hordes; national and international journalists are being harassed, as are Catholic priests, artists, and political activists who have denounced the violence of the regime. Ortega’s “pathway to peace” is filled with violence.

Despite Ortega’s apparent optimism, popular discontent looms large, and Nicaragua’s political crisis is far from over. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, at least 317 people have died since the beginning of the conflict. National human rights organizations have denounced hundreds of disappearances—estimated to be between 400 and 700—and Costa Rican authorities recently revealed that more than 20,000 Nicaraguan citizens have applied for asylum in that country, raising alarms about a potential new refugee crisis in Central America.

What lies ahead for Nicaragua’s future depends as much on the strength of the protesters as it does on the government’s capacity to retain power by effectively transforming the country’s already weak democratic structures into that of a dictatorship. Although legal and illegal forms of repression against protesters have given the government the upper hand, a look at Ortega’s rise to power since 2007 shows that, without the many sectors and actors that made his ascent possible, his path to dictatorship would not have been possible and might be reverted.

As with most repressive regimes, Ortega’s was built on negotiations and political agreements, rather than on sheer coercion. After having governed the country from 1979 to 1990 as one of the main exponents of the Sandinista Revolution, Ortega lost three consecutive presidential elections in 1990, 1996, and 2001. Each of these losses made him realize that without negotiating with his opponents, a return to power would be impossible. And so he did. In 2000, he brokered an agreement with the then ruling right-wing Liberal Party (PLC) and its corrupt leader, former president Arnoldo Alemán. Through this pact, Ortega was able to change the electoral law and win the presidential election in 2006 with only 38 percent of the votes. In time, the pact gave him control over the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Electoral Council. In exchange, Alemán’s 20-year corruption sentence was overturned; all while economic and political benefits were divided between the two strongmen and their supporters.

The Catholic Church came next. Ortega abandoned his anti-clerical stance from the revolutionary years and proclaimed his spiritual transformation. With Murillo, they together promoted a language of reconciliation, faith, and peace. His religious conversion received the blessing of one of the Catholic’s Church’s most influential figures at the time, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, who officiated Ortega’s marriage with Murillo in 2005. In exchange, Ortega criminalized abortion and promoted a conservative agenda on social issues. When Ortega was reelected in 2011, the Catholic Conference of Bishops denounced the election’s lack of transparency. Both Catholic clergy and laymen criticized Cardinal Obando’s ongoing support of the regime and became increasingly vocal about the government’s undemocratic practices. By then, of course, Ortega’s courtship of Catholic’s beliefs and conservative ideologies had already paid off.

The private sector played also a key role in Ortega’s rise to power. Ortega had learned to tame his political messages, be it by reducing his attacks on the United States or by moderating his stance towards the private sector. Yet, his most important transformation happened behind closed doors. Ortega had become a wealthy businessman since the beginning of the 1990s when he and other Sandinista politicians enriched themselves by seizing state properties in what has been since popularly known as “la piñata.” When he returned to power in 2007 he called upon Nicaragua’s businessmen to sit at the table with him. He offered a stable regime, with lush perks for investors and private companies. In return, the business sector supported Ortega’s government, going as far as sitting in committees organized by an increasingly autocratic regime. Only on April 18, 2018, with the state’s repression against protesters already mounting, did Nicaragua’s Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP) finally confront the government. Their complicity, however, had already paved the way to Ortega’s quasi-dictatorship.

To this complex web of complicities we can add many others. Within the country, there are those who have benefited from the government’s selective and entirely politicized social programs. The most radical of them have joined the ranks of agitators and counter-protesters acting against political dissenters. Dozens of state employees have done the same either out of conviction or out of fear of losing their jobs. Outside of the country, the silent complicity of the international community also did its part. In a region ridden by crime and gang-related violence, Nicaragua was praised as an example of citizen security and community policing. Next to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and even Costa Rica, Nicaragua was seen as a role model for its low levels of crime and lethal violence. Ortega happily wrapped and sold this image of the country, which benefited, if not all out propelled, the country’s economy and guaranteed his undemocratic policies; including his fierce control of civil society and persecution of independent media.

Ortega’s centralized and suppressive power was made possible by these many complicities and silences. But Ortega seems to have forgotten this. One by one, he has begun to undermine the very alliances that made his ascent to power possible. Most notably, he openly attacked the Catholic Church, which he had invited to serve as mediator in the conflict, calling Nicaraguan bishops “golpistas,” or coup conspirators. More so, he severed his alliance with the business sector by sending his supporters to occupy the lands of members of the economic elite that had dared to criticize his government. Only the puppet-like political parties in Nicaragua’s National Assembly and his tightly controlled group of loyalists in the state apparatus remain firmly behind him.

In a heavily Catholic country, Ortega’s open attack on the Catholic Church will come at a high cost. His recent confrontation with the private sector is already undermining the economic stability that had allowed him to shield his political abuses. And, Ortega’s reliance on thugs, paramilitaries, and agitators is quickly generating the type of criminality and disorder his government had allegedly averted all these years.

The future of Nicaragua’s political crisis is still uncertain. But if history can offer a lesson, it is that the same actors and sectors that brought Ortega to power can now contribute to his demise. Just as the private sector, the United States, and the Catholic Church eventually helped overthrow the last Somoza in 1979 after having supported him, so can those actors and sectors that were once silent and complicit with Ortega contribute to the downfall of his regime. Nicaraguan bishops have denounced and protected those suffering under the government’s repression. The private sector has abandoned its comfort zone and openly called for early elections. And the international community, including the Organization of American States, the US, and human rights organizations, are exerting considerable pressure on Ortega’s government.

At the vanguard of Nicaragua’s uprising are the thousands of young protesters who have and continue to risk their lives. To them belongs the laurel for having exposed the path to dictatorship that, under a democratic veil, has been advancing in Nicaragua. The young protesters behind Nicaragua’s uprising do not belong to a political party, nor do they subscribe to any of the main political ideologies. One main challenge for them and those resisting Ortega’s government is to create the leadership necessary for a viable political force. If their call for early elections succeeds, this will become of outmost importance. In 1979, a coalition of several forces enabled the revolution to oust the dictatorship and institutionalize social change. Perhaps history will repeat itself.

As many dictators before him, the quasi-dictator Ortega has forgotten that in order to get to power, he depended on others. Even if he temporarily silences dissenters, the bases of his dominion have been dramatically and irrevocably shaken. What remains to be seen is how his regime will fall. One can only hope that democracy in Nicaragua will be restored by the instruments of an “electoral” rather than an armed revolution.

Gema Kloppe-Santamaría is Assistant Professor of Latin American History at Loyola University Chicago. She is the editor, with David Carey Jr., of the volume Violence and Crime in Latin America: Representations and Politics.

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/nicaragua-uprising-from-dictatorship-to-revolution-to-dictatorship/feed/0Twenty Years On: The ICC and the Politicization of its Mechanismshttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/twenty-years-icc-politicization-mechanisms/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/twenty-years-icc-politicization-mechanisms/#respondTue, 07 Aug 2018 20:11:04 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18078]]>Twenty years ago, 120 states adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Rome Statute allows for the prosecution of individuals for their involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The court has been criticized and supported by many governments, and many on both sides have recognized its potential as a tool in achieving political ends. At this twenty-year mark, an examination of the ways in which the court’s work has been politicized points to what can be done to make it a more effective institution.

Over the course of its existence, the referral mechanism has been used by various governments, triggering investigations of the court. Referrals are often used as a way to buttress domestic accountability efforts, for example, the referrals by Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Mali, the Union of the Comoros, and Gabon. In some of these cases, however, the court’s efforts were significantly tainted by politics.

In Uganda, for example, the government of president Yoweri Museveni referred the conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel movement, to the court—rather than the conflict as a whole. Then-ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo attracted sharp criticism for taking part in the political game. Critics pointed out that the Ugandan army has committed grave crimes as well and that the ICC Prosecutor should not have aligned himself with Museveni, who seems to have used the referral to send a message to his adversaries.

No case exemplifies the politicized approach to ICC referrals more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most recently, on May 22, the Foreign Minister of Palestine, Riyad al-Maliki, personally delivered a file to the ICC containing an 18-page document that asked the prosecutor to open an investigation into crimes committed on Palestinian territory. Al-Maliki said at a press conference after the meeting in The Hague, that the referral is an “important and historic step towards justice for the Palestinian people who continue to suffer ongoing, widespread and systematic crimes.”

The recent referall argues that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by Israel and asks for an investigation of “matters related to the Israeli settlement regime,” forcible transfer, murder, torture, persecution, “crimes involving the establishment of a system of apartheid” among others.

The step by the Palestinian government is widely viewed as a measure to increase pressure on Israel, and also on the ICC and the international community to act, in light of an increasingly desperate situation. Palestine became a party to the Rome Statute in 2015 and allowed the court to investigate crimes retroactively dating back to June 13, 2014. Thus, some argue that the self-referral adds little legal value apart from potentially speeding up the process.

In spite of Israel not being a member of the court, since Palestine is a member the ICC can look into crimes that were committed by Palestinian nationals or those committed on Palestinian territory, including alleged crimes by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli government has consistently rejected the ICC’s involvement, even in cases on Palestinian territory. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs characterized the recent referral attempt as “legally invalid.”

Situations such as this make the work of the ICC far more delicate and have the potential to taint its effort with bias. The activities of the court so far in the Israeli-Palestinian situation, for example, have been limited to a preliminary examination, which means no perpetrators have been identified and the prosecutors establish only whether the legal requirements for a full investigation are met. ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda stressed that a referral by a government “does not automatically lead to the opening of an investigation.” In July, however, the judges ordered the court’s administrative body to start its outreach and communications activities with the Palestinian people—a decision that is seen as a sign the ICC is stepping up its engagement in the region.

Given the timeline of recent events in the Israeli-Palestinian situation, allowing an investigation into crimes committed after June 13, 2014, could be viewed as creating bias. On June 12, for example, Israeli teenagers were abducted and killed by Hamas, while on June 13, Israel started a wave of house searches and arrests, and several days later launched Operation Protective Edge.

No matter the way in which the referral mechanism is used, the ICC Prosecutor acts independently and chooses the focus of any investigation. Prosecutors are not bound by the list of crimes a government mentions in a referral. Therefore, they can also decide to investigate additional crimes committed by state authorities, which creates a risk that referrals would backfire. However, since the court is dependent on the cooperation of states, for example when it comes to accessing crime scenes or carrying out arrest warrants, governments still have a lot of power to decide when to cooperate and which side of a conflict they want to see prosecuted.

The various situations demonstrate the fundamental dilemma of the court: that of the difference between its legal mandate and the politicized reality. While the ICC was established as an impartial court, its possibilities to act are in reality limited and shaped by political interests. The court has navigated this dilemma by carefully balancing the ideal—an apolitical approach merely based on the law—and a more realistic approach, thus, accommodating the interests of the governments involved. In Ivory Coast, for example, the ICC started with issuing indictments against members of the opposition and later moved to also investigate crimes allegedly committed by persons linked to the sitting government. The expansion of the investigation has not yet resulted in new indictments. Thus, so far there has been no situation where the ICC was given the ability to function completely independently and which led to concrete results. In cases where the prosecution tried to emancipate itself from the interests of those in power—like in Sudan and Kenya—it failed.

While the ICC continues to reiterate that it is a legal body, basing its decisions on nothing but the law, it should acknowledge more plainly that it operates in highly political contexts. This would reflect the realities more accurately and increase understanding of the functioning and limitations of the court.Benjamin Duerr is an international criminal law analyst based in The Hague. He tweets at @benjaminduerr.

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/twenty-years-icc-politicization-mechanisms/feed/0Five Frequently Asked Questions on the Inclusion of Women in Peace Processeshttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/five-questions-inclusion-women-peace-processes/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/five-questions-inclusion-women-peace-processes/#respondMon, 06 Aug 2018 19:55:55 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18070]]>Why, if there are substantive reasons for including women and their rights in peace and security processes, and research demonstrates positive outcomes from this inclusion, has involving women proven challenging? Women make up at least half the global population—they are not a minority group. Yet, when thinking about including more women in peace processes, there are often an array of questions expressed that in some way relate to the fundamental question: “why women?”

Outlined below are some of the most regularly-raised questions by observers, mediators, and others on the particulars of “why women” in peace processes, and brief explanations that lay out the human rights basis for women’s participation in peace processes, indicating recent research and analysis about their roles in negotiations and their outcomes.

Research increasingly shows that peace processes that are inclusive of women—crucially, where it is more than token—tend to result in more durable and sustainable peace. Research also indicates that the strong influence of women in negotiation processes positively correlates with a greater likelihood of agreements being implemented. There are thus clear benefits to including women in the process of negotiating peace.

And yet, women have historically been excluded from all stages of efforts to end conflict, this despite their roles in conflict, both as members of armed groups and as peace activists. This exclusion contravenes established international obligations and norms regarding the right of women to participate, as per the The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), including General Recommendations 23 and 30, the Beijing Platform for Action, and as supported in numerous Security Council resolutions and regional treaties.

Women’s exclusion continues despite evidence that women and girls are targeted for specific, gendered types of violence in conflict—including sexual violence—and are often affected differently by abuses committed during conflict. The rights of women and girls are often an afterthought, if they are considered at all, in peace agreements and in the implementation of accords. Not addressing these violations, in formal and informal agreements, runs the risk of impunity and repetition.

It may seem like more women are participating in peace processes and that their inclusion is no longer as urgent an issue as it once was. However, recent research shows that “women’s participation [in peace processes and political agreements] is almost always challenged by the main armed groups, political parties, and mediators.” Available data also indicates that women’s participation remains low—usually between four and eleven percent of negotiators—and that agreements themselves rarely include mention of particular women’s rights concerns, let alone address them substantively in the text and obligations.

1. What difference does it actually make if women are included in peace processes? Won’t women who are included by negotiating parties simply toe party lines?

There is an important distinction to be made between representation—meant to indicate an individual’s role representing a constituency—and participation, which is broadly used by women’s rights advocates to denote substantive participation, not token representation. Negotiators, regardless of gender, are indeed meant to represent a constituency in peace talks, while mediators, for example, are meant to provide a space for relevant parties to navigate those constituent demands.

Women’s participation in peace processes is not, therefore, solely about adding one or two women to existing negotiation teams—an approach that is often called “add women and stir.” Rather, women’s participation refers to the multifaceted and various ways women and their rights are reflected in these political processes. From this perspective, the significance of technical advisors, civil society advocates, gender advisors (who need not be women), and women on negotiation teams are all better understood. This type of inclusion also entails the ongoing representation of women on negotiation teams (e.g., as in Colombia); the provision of gender expertise—both training and technical input—to mediators and negotiation teams to understand how women’s rights are part of issues under discussion (whether that be ceasefires, political power sharing, justice efforts, etc.); and mechanisms for civil society to input ideas, concerns and proposals (e.g., as in Guatemala).

2. Many countries suffer through grinding conflict for years. When there is an opportunity for a ceasefire, isn’t this valuable opportunity being disrupted by demanding women’s participation?

Research does not show that the inclusion of women disrupts or derails peace processes. Rather, there are numerous examples of women finding creative ways to ensure peace processes get back on track once they have stalled.

There is no doubt that getting men with guns to the negotiating table is important. But there are several points related to the rights of women that this approach neglects, beyond the fact that it is not supported by research.

First, this argument does not reflect the reality of who has the guns. It is not uncommon for women to comprise 30 percent or more of armed groups, so excluding women means there is also a lack of women with guns at the table. It also disregards the challenges faced by these women in fighting forces, including the additional risk they face.

Then there is the substance of what a particular ceasefire covers. Recent examples from Colombia and Myanmar show that when violations of women’s rights (e.g., sexual violence) have been central to the waging of the conflict, ceasefires need to include the cessation of these tactics and strategies. If these are not included, then the ceasefire can essentially allow conflict to continue, and undermine chances for an effective long-term peace process.

Beyond this, if initial negotiations result in more than a ceasefire and lead to a substantive peace process, “waiting until later” to push for women’s inclusion and for their rights to be addressed usually means both are substantively excluded. Women from Afghanistan, Libya, and Myanmar are currently seeing these processes continue without them because of the “urgency” argument, i.e., that the most urgent need is to get men with guns to the table, and other actors may be brought in later. Prioritizing men in the initial talks sets up an approach that continues into broader talks long after peace negotiations, with little space for women’s rights advocates in the discussions on security, political power sharing, and other topics that shape post-conflict communities.

3. There are many groups that are excluded from peace talks, so why is there so much emphasis on women?

It is true that both informal and formal peace talks tend to be exclusive of many people. But calling for women to be substantively involved at all levels is part of a broad call for inclusivity. This means ensuring groups that often are excluded from negotiations—indigenous groups, labor unions, interalia—have a voice in peace efforts. As these groups face similar challenges regarding participation, women often face barriers to their participation within these groups as well. In other words, they are doing the work but are not represented in leadership, including in political delegations. Women face multiple challenges due to their many identities—whether indigenous, ethnic, religious, or others. Therefore, just as recommendations for women’s participation recognize the need for broad inclusivity, calls for broad inclusivity need to specifically recognize the particular barriers that women face.

4. How is it possible to know if women will advocate for women’s rights? Where are the guarantees that the “right” women are at the table?

It is crucial to emphasize that in peace processes and in general, a woman’s participation should not mean she is only there to advocate for women’s rights. Expecting women to exclusively shoulder this responsibility is problematic as it does not reflect the complexity of how both men and women participate in negotiations. This expectation also limits the role of women in negotiations, constraining them to talking about one issue area, and “silo-ing” both the issue and the women themselves. Women’s rights can be and should be raised by both men and women—including the mediators, negotiators, and experts—on the various issues under discussion, whether disarmament, reintegration into communities, political integration, ceasefires, etc. Equal participation means the ideas and concerns a woman brings to the table shouldn’t be shackled to her right to be there.

5. What does women’s inclusion look like in complex conflicts that need urgent attention?

There are multiple ways to support women and their rights in even the most complex conflicts. In Colombia, women had been mobilized for years to push for peace, resulting in multiple levels of engagement in negotiations, including in the official talks. In Syria, this includes dialogue between leaders of negotiation processes and women who are struggling to have their voices heard. This means all negotiating parties should include women in their delegations, in addition to the Women’s Advisory Board and additional future mechanisms for women’s inclusion. In Yemen, it entails raising concerns when women were not allowed to travel to participate in initial discussions, and calls for victims to be respected in negotiations. In Myanmar, it means inclusive negotiations and political reform, with inclusion of women’s rights, while not neglecting the urgent Rohingya crisis. Specifically, previous agreements on quotas for women should be implemented, not rolled back. In Libya, it has meant, in part, women’s political participation in post-Ghaddafi transitions. In Afghanistan, it means accountability for governments and donors regarding their pledged commitments to women’s rights and women’s participation in crucial talks at all levels, and at all stages. And, on the regional and global stage, new networks of women mediators provide a promising opportunity to make women’s participation not only a regular occurrence, but a transformative one.Sarah Taylor is a Research Fellow at the International Peace Institute and oversees the organization’s work on women, peace, and security.

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/five-questions-inclusion-women-peace-processes/feed/0Key Global Events to Watch in Augusthttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/key-global-events-to-watch-in-august-2018/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/key-global-events-to-watch-in-august-2018/#respondThu, 02 Aug 2018 19:16:09 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18059]]>At the start of every month, the Global Observatory posts a list of key upcoming meetings and events that have implications for global affairs.

AUGUST 1-3: United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), Eighth session, New York

The UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management—the intergovernmental body that aims to address global challenges regarding the use of geospatial information—will meet from meet in New York from August 1-3. This year’s session will be led by member states, and aims to promote international cooperation and address challenges regarding the application of geospatial information, including in development agendas and global policymaking.

AUGUST 4: Results of presidential election in Zimbabwe (expected)

Zimbabwe’s electoral commission has until Saturday to release the results of the July 30 presidential vote. Three people were killed in post-election violence between security forces and protestors, action that sparked UN intervention on August 2. Farhan Haq, UN deputy spokesperson, said, “We call on the political leaders and the population as a whole to exercise restraint and reject any form of violence while awaiting resolution of the disputes and announcement of the election results.” According to the New York Times, the elections, which intended to project stability and attract investors, will be the first since the fall of Robert Mugabe.

AUGUST 6: Civil Society 20 Summit, Argentina

The C20—one of the seven Engagement Groups of the G20, which is a forum of the world’s major economies that seeks to develop global polities to address today’s pressing challenges—will meet on August 6 to generate spaces to discuss and build, through transparent and inclusive processes, high-level policy papers to be presented to the G20. Working Groups for the C20 Argentina 2018 include Anti-Corruption; Architecture of the International Financial System; Education, Employment, and Inclusion; Environment, Climate, and Energy; Gender; Investment and Infrastructure; Local2Global; and Global Health.

The Human Rights Council Advisory Committee—a body of 18 independent experts serving as a think-tank to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) that provides studies and research-based advice, as requested by the Council–will meet from August 6-10, one of its two annual meetings.

AUGUST 6-17:Group of Governmental Experts on further practical measures for the prevention of an arms race in outer space, First session, Geneva

The first session of a new group of governmental experts on further practical measures for the prevention of an arms race in outer space will meet in Geneva from August 6-17. This group of experts, established in December 2017, and operating on consensus, will hold two two-week sessions in Geneva, one in 2018 and one in 2019.

AUGUST 6-30:Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Ninety-sixth session, Geneva

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination—a UN body composed of eighteen elected State Party experts with the aim to eliminate racial discrimination in all forms, promote understanding between races, and to build an international community free from racial segregation and racial discrimination—will meet in Geneva from August 6-30. This year’s session will consider state reports from Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Nepal, Peru, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden, along with issues from Botswana.

AUGUST 7-16: Meeting of Experts to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, Geneva

From August 7-16, a group of governmental experts—established in 1991 to strengthen the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention, the first multilateral disarmament treaty banning the development, production, and stockpiling of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction—will meet in Geneva. This year’s meeting will focus on cooperation and assistance; review of scientific and technological developments; strengthening national implementation, assistance, response, and preparedness; and institutional strengthening of the convention.

AUGUST 11: Prime Minister-elect Imran Khan to take oath of office, Pakistan

Imran Khan, who launched the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party in 1996, will take the oath of office on August 11. A socialite and former cricket star, Kahn appealed to young people in a country where 60 percent of the population is under 30 years old. In the midst of electoral violence, Khan won a sweeping victory at the national level. However, Pakistan’s political history is characterized by military dictatorship, and no democratically elected prime minister has completed their full term. The election follows in the wake of President Asif Ali Zardari, whose work to uphold the Eighth Amendment signified a shift away from the military political establishment towards the prominence of a civilian political party figure.

AUGUST 12: Presidential Election in Mali

Following the initial July 29 poll, Mali’s August 12 vote will help to determine the country’s future security, peace, and democracy. Mali has been in the midst a political crisis since 2012, when President Amadou Toumani was overthrown. The intervention of a UN Peacekeeping mission that intended to stabilize the country then became the target of violent attacks (see our Cruz Report Series). In the midst of Mali’s violent political climate, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s leadership has been put into question, and attacks on polling stations as well as on the UN peacekeeping mission camp in Aguelhok raise the stakes for the second round of Mali’s presidential election.

AUGUST 13-17:Human Rights Council, Working Group on Communications, Twenty-third session, Geneva

The Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Communications (WGC) will meet for its twenty-third session in Geneva from August 13-17. The WGC consists of five independent experts and is geographically representative of the five regional groups. The group will meet to assess the admissibility and the merits of communication of the allegations of violations, including whether a communication, alone or in combination with other, appears to reveal a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

AUGUST 13-18: Youth 20 Summit, Argentina

The Y20—a young leaders’ international diplomatic forum in the high-level G20 head of state summit—will take place in the Siglo 21 University Campus in Córdoba, Argentina, from August 13-18. This will be the first time that a Y20 Summit is held in South America. The 2018 Summit will gather over 80 young leaders to participate in debates that focus on creating an inclusive, disruptive, and impactful experience that leaves a legacy, bringing their knowledge and experience to create a space of representation, and upholding the responsibility to promote the vision of young people around the world.

AUGUST 18: Bankruptcy law to take effect, Saudi Arabia

A law aimed to organize the procedures of bankruptcy that is intended to improve Saudi Arabia’s economy, facilitate business, ane empower debtors will go into effect on August 18. The Kingdom, which ranks 168 out of 190 countries, is seeking to improve its standing in international reports on insolvency.

AUGUST 29: General Assembly, High-level plenary meeting of the Assembly to commemorate and promote the International Day against Nuclear Tests (to be confirmed)

On Wednesday, August 29, the General Assembly will hold a high-level plenary meeting to commemorate and promote the International Day against Nuclear Tests. In a 2009 resolution, the 64th session of the UN General Assembly declared August 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The resolution calls for increasing awareness and education “about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.” It was initiated by the Republic of Kazakhstan, with a large number of sponsors and cosponsors to commemorate the closure of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site on August 29, 1991. The Day is meant as a call to action for the UN Member States, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, youth networks and the media to inform, educate and advocate the necessity of banning nuclear weapon tests as a valuable step towards achieving a safer world.

AUGUST 30: United States’ third wave of tariffs on Chinese goods goes into effect (expected)

The United States is working on enacting a third wave of tariffs over Chinese goods worth $200 billion, according to CNN. These new tariffs, announced on July 31, would go into effect sometime after August 30. The tariff is the Trump administration’s response to Beijing’s July 6 tariff raise and follows the US’ second wave of tariffs on Chinese goods worth $16 billion. The tariff wave reflects the two countries’ strategies of immediate retaliation, which has the potential to strain future negotiations. US President Trump declared that if China retaliated again, he would be willing to enact a fourth round of tariffs.

Also in August: Bachelet Nominated to Be UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein’s Term Ends

Michelle Bachelet of Chile was nominated by the UN Secretary-General to be the next UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The nomination must be approved by the UN General Assembly. The current commissioner, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, announced in December that he would not seek a second term. Zeid gave his last global update to the Human Rights Council on June 18, 2018, which consisted of his reflections on universal human rights. In his June 18 passionate address, he implored the UN to choose the protection of peace, rights, justice and social progress over chauvinistic nationalism, saying, “Only when States all work for each other, for everyone, for all people, for the human rights of all people—can peace be attainable.” In the past few months, Zeid gained wide press coverage for his comments against the US policy of separating migrant children from their families, and for his June 15 opinion piece in The Washington Post in defense of human rights. The date of his departure from the role has not yet been announced.

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/08/key-global-events-to-watch-in-august-2018/feed/0Turkmenistan Reaches its Limits With Economic and Security Challengeshttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/turkmenistan-limits-economic-security-challenges/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/turkmenistan-limits-economic-security-challenges/#respondTue, 31 Jul 2018 14:00:59 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18051]]>With Iran and Afghanistan as neighbors, Turkmenistan is often overlooked due to its proximity to geopolitical hotspots. Recent measures by its government to restrict emigration may seem peculiar without greater context on the challenges facing the country. Economic mismanagement and issues in securing the country’s border against the Taliban and the Islamic State (ISIS) and affiliated groups are just some of the signs that without a change in approach, there is a risk of a destabilization in the country. With endemic corruption, systemic flaws, and a totalitarian leader, the impact of larger failings in Turkmenistan could have potentially significant geopolitical repercussions.

Turkmenistan’s recent history and current circumstances can be partially explained by its reliance on two commodities: cotton and gas. Similar to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan was turned into a cotton monoculture by the Soviets, and it remains among the top ten producers globally. This, however, comes at a cost to the people, and thus to the government’s revenue stream. Every year, the regime forces thousands of government employees and children to go to the cotton fields—a tactic that most likely prompted the US to ban imports of cotton from Turkmenistan this year. Inefficient irrigation for cotton cultivation contributes to Turkmenistan wasting water on a huge scale, with per capita consumption three and a half times that of the US.

Turkmenistan is also home to the world’s fifth largest natural gas reserves. With most other branches of the economy in neglect, gas revenues have been the main source of government revenue—almost 70 percent. This revenue contributes to Turkmenistan’s higher average income compared to its neighbors, although income inequality is also high. All its gas wealth belies a more fundamental problem, however: access to markets.

Russia ceased purchasing Turkmen gas in 2016, when reselling turned out to be unprofitable. After a dispute over payments, Turkmenistan ended gas deliveries to Iran, which also cut off a potential transit route to Turkey and Europe. Demarcation disputes among the Caspian Sea have hampered plans to construct a gas pipeline to Europe along a different route. China is currently Turkmenistan’s only major buyer of gas, and Turkmenistan its main supplier. Since Chinese loans funded the gas pipeline between the two countries, China purchases Turkmen gas at a discount and thus holds substantial leverage over the government. Having China as the only major customer—and at a discount—has severely cut government revenues in recent years. At the same time, the government has proven unable to diversify the economy to cope with the situation.

These challenges are all exacerbated by the government’s ongoing unnecessary and lavish spending. Ashgabat, the country’s capital, boasts extravagant marble buildings and monuments. In preparation for last year’s Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games, a largely unknown sports tournament that attracted few visitors to the isolated country, the regime spent billions on an oversized airport and sports arenas. The government is so cash-strapped that it held salaries in arrears for its employees, including police in the capital, for months. On top of that, a voluntary “donation” to the Games was deducted from salaries once they were paid.

Meanwhile, the country’s currency, the manat, has lost much of its value, and year-to-year inflation is currently estimated at 300 percent. Unemployment most likely exceeds 50 percent, though official figures are difficult to come by. Government subsidies that once provided free gas, water, and electricity were mostly cut in the last few years. Access to healthcare is still nominally free and universal, yet the level of treatment and accessibility is low. Turkmenistan has the lowest life expectancy and one of the highest rates of child mortality in the former Soviet Union. Homosexuality is considered a disease to be treated by medical institutions, while new cases of HIV are claimed to not exist.

For almost a year, there have been regular shortages of basic staples like flour, and of medicine. Along with long queues to secure basic goods, these are the most obvious signs of Turkmenistan’s economic crisis. As elections—including the 2017 presidential elections where President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow won 97 of the vote with 97 percent turnout—are a farce, people are increasingly hoping to find opportunity outside the country. There are, however, almost daily reports that people are prevented from boarding their planes, in a government effort to curb emigration.

The presence of individuals to remedy the situation is also limited as the quality of education in Turkmenistan remains quite poor. Much of the curriculum in schools is focused on indoctrinating students in the cult of personality around President Berdimuhamedow, and internet penetration is very low. President Berdimuhamedow also regularly reshuffles or purges top levels of his administration, forcing officials to prove their loyalty to him, fend off competitors, and nurture their patronage networks to demonstrate their worth. Accordingly, many civil servants are inadequately prepared or unwilling to tackle the economic challenges for fear of losing their position.

Turkmenistan, despite its isolationism, is geopolitically significant. Its systemic and deeply-rooted deficiencies thus have wider implications. Turkmenistan borders Iran, with which it has cordial, albeit strained, relations. More importantly, Turkmenistan borders Afghanistan. Two million ethnic Turkmens populate Northern Afghanistan. As a section of a planned pipeline to India through Afghanistan is under construction in this area, maintaining relations with Afghanistan and keeping the border secure are of utmost importance to Turkmenistan’s foreign and economic policy.

With the surge of the Taliban and ISIS in regions neighboring Turkmenistan, clashes with Turkmen troops at the border have increased. Turkmenistan’s conscripts are unfit to tackle this challenge. The army suffers from corruption, underfunding, inadequate training, and poor morale. Incursion into Afghan territory and deals with Turkmen warlords in Afghanistan are inadequate fixes to secure the border, as the Turkmen government is still reluctant to accept external assistance. In the short run, it is unlikely that radical groups will gain ground in Turkmenistan, but in the long run, given the weaknesses of the Afghan government and Turkmenistan’s inability to secure its borders, the country may get increasingly destabilized from the outside.

Turkmenistan’s wider geopolitical aspirations stand in contrast to the reality it is facing. For years, and increasingly so since the announcement of China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, the government has demonstrated a desire to become a regional hub and transportation corridor. It has constructed railways, pipelines, and trade facilities to that end. These aspirations are, however, unlikely to be realized due to the country’s heavily restricted immigration policy and poor investment climate.

With virtually no organized political opposition or civil society, the current government will remain firmly in place. Small protests against shortages of basic goods and new taxes and fees pose little to no threat to the status quo. Although the government has initiated minor reforms and may be able to ease relations with Iran and create another gas revenue stream, rampant corruption, poor education, and lack of transparency will make it impossible to remedy the country’s problems. Without adequate solutions, domestic discontent will increase over time, and with the rise in security challenges it cannot meet, Turkmenistan will be facing difficult circumstances for the foreseeable future. Only in the promise of younger bureaucrats who are educated abroad rising through the ranks can there be the possibility of a change in course. Given the country’s post-Soviet history, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Benno Zogg is a Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich, where he focuses on development and security in fragile states as well as on the post-Soviet space. He tweets @BennoZogg

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/turkmenistan-limits-economic-security-challenges/feed/0Shake-up of G5 Sahel Joint Force Starts at Home, in Malihttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/shakeup-g5-sahel-joint-force-starts-home-mali/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/shakeup-g5-sahel-joint-force-starts-home-mali/#respondFri, 27 Jul 2018 17:41:12 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18031]]>The summer of 2018 will be the first real test for the still nascent G5 Sahel Joint Force (Force conjointe du G5 Sahel or FC-G5S). On June 29, exactly a month before Mali’s presidential election, the FC-G5S headquarters in the Central Mali town of Sévaré was the subject of a complex car bomb and gunfire attack claimed by the al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM). A few days later, at the G5 summit—held on the sidelines of the last African Union (AU) summit in Nouakchott—heads of state decided to replace the FC-G5S’ first commander, Malian general Didier Dacko, along with his deputy.

There were multiple reasons for this decision. The 5,000 strong FC-G5S counterterrorism force, officially launched in July 2017, has had a slow start and so far has had a limited impact on the continually deteriorating security situation in Central Mali. This is all the more problematic as incumbent Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita had been elected in 2013 on the promise to curb violence, and his 2018 campaign also focused heavily on security, including the promise to “recruit several thousand new military.” Under international pressure, the Malian government also recently had to investigate and recognize abuses and killing of civilians by its troops, including those under FC-G5S command.

The replacement of the joint force’s leadership with Mauritanian General Hanena Ould Sidi, and Chadian General Oumar Bikimo as his deputy, may also be an attempt to incentivize two countries who have largely remained on the margin of the G5 (despite Chadian troops commanded by the same Bikimo playing a key role in the French Serval offensive back in January 2013). The first few operations of the joint force had only included the Malian, Burkina Faso, and Niger armed forces at their common borders—called the Liptako Gourma region—with support from the French Barkhane regional counterterrorism force. But at the beginning of July, Chad and Niger apparently collaborated in an operation at the Libyan border. For their part, the Mauritanian and Chadian armies are thought to be the most capable and seasoned in desert terrain of the five armies, and each contribute a 750 soldier battalion to the joint force.

This should, however, not distract from the fact that the shake-up of the FC-G5S needs to start at home in each of the five countries, and in Mali in particular, the country most affected by the threat of terrorism. The FC-G5S is sometimes misunderstood as being another peace operation of the type the United Nations or the AU would deploy. Instead, each of the five armies concerned operates—for the time being—in their own country, in a strip of 50 kilometers on their side of the border, with a right of pursuit. This builds on about twenty joint cross-border military operations (OMCT in French) carried out in previous years with support from Barkhane, in terms of planning, communication, air cover, and medical evacuation, with French troops operating alongside African armies. The FC-G5S Concept of Operations envisages a second phase when the force would operate in other parts of the G5 space, but this remains hypothetical at this stage.

Much energy has so far been spent on financing and operationalizing the joint force. Pledges made in the lead up to the February 2018 Brussels conference—including, notably, $100 million from Saudi Arabia, €100 million from the EU, $30 million from United Arab Emirates, and a promise of $60 million in bilateral support to FC-G5S armies from the US—have been slow to translate to progress on the ground, have mostly been used for the purchasing of equipment, and led to a feud over the control of the funds. This also falls short of the estimated €423 million budget for the first year, and a number of donors seem uncomfortable with funding the annual €75 million operating costs of armed forces within their homeland for years to come. The EU Training Mission in Mali has already spent €33.4 million annually since 2013 for the training of Malian armed forces and its mandate was just extended for two years and amended to include the provision of advice and training support to the FC-G5S.

Short of full UN support and a funding package under Chapter VII of the UN Charter—which Secretary-General Antonio Guterres continues to advocate for despite other voices calling for a better distinction between peacekeeping and counterterrorism—the Security Council, under resolution 2391, only authorized limited operational and logistical support from the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) to the FC-G5S. A February 2018 technical agreement between the UN, EU, and G5 Sahel states details the medical/casualty evacuation, engineering, and logistical support costs for an estimated total of €44 million over two years, subject to full reimbursement to the UN.

Talk over the past few months has also been on better coordinating security and development approaches, with 500 development projects envisaged under the Sahel Alliance over the next five years—an initially Franco-German led European initiative in support of the G5 Sahel, with support from others—and the foreseen launch of a G5 Sahel Priority Investment Program, as well as the addition of a police component to the FC-G5S to foster police and judicial cooperation between G5 countries. Related to this is the challenge for Maman Sidikou—previously head of the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the AU mission in Somalia—who took over the Permanent Secretariat of the G5 Sahel in February and formally has authority over the FC-G5S, to ensure that military and development actions are indeed better balanced, but also, and most importantly, that these follow a somewhat common regional political strategy. This especially as each of the G5 countries have followed different paths in dealing with what they see as their domestic terrorist threats.

But now that the Sisyphean FC-G5S is slowly becoming operational, concerns over abuses by some of its forces is growing, despite G5 member states having committed to adopt a robust human rights and international humanitarian law compliance framework. In June, the Malian government recognized the implication that some of its soldiers were involved in the extrajudicial killings of 25 Fulani civilians near Mopti in Central Mali. Around the same time, MINUSMA reported that Malian soldiers attached to the FC-G5S were responsible for killing 12 civilians in the border town of Boulikessi. Burkinabe troops across the border have been accused of similar abuses. The reported ambiguous relations of the state with local militias, and a divide and rule approach to counterinsurgency from central to eastern Mali—including the Dan na Amassagou militia, despite the Malian prime minister announcing in March that the state would disarm militias—has also fueled intercommunal violence, including across the border into Niger’s Tillabéri Region.

The problem is that the regional counterterrorism framework provided by the FC-G5S, although it may help deny safe havens to terrorist groups at border areas, has so far not compelled states to embark on such genuine SSR. Building or fixing a plane while flying is never easy, and the imperative of operational results tends to favor military gizmos over building legitimate and accountable forces, i.e., state security over human security. Creating a regional parliamentary mechanism to provide democratic oversight to the G5 Sahel governance, and the recently inaugurated G5 Defense College in Nouakchott (to train and prepare officers) as well as the Security Cooperation Platform (for sharing operational intelligence), are not bad ideas in principle, but civilian oversight and accountability of defense and security forces needs to start at home.

Furthermore, the FC-G5S will always be as credible as each of the participating armies is at home and will only be as effective as its weakest members. There is also the risk that if the FC-G5S is perceived as a foreign force controlling the national army, it could further undermine the legitimacy of states failing to provide basic services and to gain the trust of its people. The feeling among Mali’s neighbors is that, although it is the country most concerned, it is also the one that does the least about it politically and militarily.

Mali, which experienced a military coup in 2012 and is not exempt from internal tensions, has since doubled its military expenditure as a percentage of GDP (see graph). Malian President Keita received four A-29 Super Tucano attack planes a few days ago and Russian and French helicopters last year. Although key non-permanent institutions—national SSR, disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), and integration commissions—and some joint patrols, which were only meant to be an interim confidence building measure, have been established, most of the key security provisions of the 2015 inter-Malian peace agreement have yet to be implemented. These include reconstituting defense and security forces following the DDR and integration of ex-rebels and creating a territorial police accountable to local authorities, as well as local dialogue mechanisms between communities and defense and security forces. These provisions are, of course, key to rendering defense and security forces more inclusive and representative of the population, and thereby better accepted, more legitimate, motivated, and effective.

Military Expenditure of G5 Sahel Members & France as a % of GDP (2000-2018)

The FC-G5S is often thought of as a potential medium-term exit strategy for both Barkhane and MINUSMA. The rationale for a regional approach to a regional problem may have some validity, and the UN peacekeeping’s force geographical limitation to the boundaries of Mali has been a challenge when armed groups of all types operate across borders. However, the joint force should not become yet another pretext for not carrying out the needed governance reforms to address the root causes of violent extremism and insecurity at home in each of the five countries, and in Mali in particular. Reforming Malian security and governance system will also make the country better able to cooperate effectively with security institutions from its G5 Sahel neighboring countries and beyond.

No one is under the illusion that the Malian presidential election will fundamentally change the political landscape, but it could serve to restart discussions between Malian authorities and its many, but too often uncoordinated international partners on a genuine and holistic medium-term SSR vision and a realistic strategy adapted to the needs of populations and to new security threats. Although a draft national SSR strategy was prepared in March with support from MINUSMA, much remains to be done to ensure its broad ownership within Malian society—participative at the level of populations, politically supported at the top of the state, and functional as a guide to sector-specific reforms and resource allocations.

The “Pact for Peace” between the government of Mali and the UN, which should include mutual commitments that the latest Security Council resolution 2423 on Mali calls for, could be a useful vehicle for such discussions. That SSR vision should aim to reconcile the effectiveness of defense and security forces with democratic governance and accountability within the security system. Human security should, above all, be at its core.

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/shakeup-g5-sahel-joint-force-starts-home-mali/feed/0Protests in Southern Iraq Intensify, Is Instability to Follow?https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/protests-southern-iraq-intensify-is-instability-to-follow/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/protests-southern-iraq-intensify-is-instability-to-follow/#respondTue, 24 Jul 2018 16:16:03 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18022]]>Widespread protests have erupted across southern Iraq over the past two weeks, sparked by long-simmering grievances regarding insufficient electricity, water quality, and unemployment. While demonstrations are common during Iraq’s hot summer months, this year’s protests appear far more broad in terms of participation, geographic spread, and violence as they expand from the oil export city of Basra through Maysan, Dhi Qar, Wasit, Babil, Karbala, and Najaf provinces.

How did southern Iraq reach this boiling point? July’s outburst of anger—directed at parties across Iraq’s political spectrum, foreign oil companies, and, notably, Iran—points to several factors driving southern Iraqi instability that extend beyond the recent escalating protest movement. Critically, the interrelated effects of economic collapse and endemic corruption, severe environmental degradation, and ongoing tribal and criminal violence undermine Baghdad’s ability to exert meaningful control over its southern provinces, while insufficient service-provision and poor governance leaves many southerners with a sense of disaffection from the national political process.

Simmering Resentment

Public anger and instability have been brewing in southern Iraq since late 2017, when Basrawis demonstrated against insufficient electricity supplies, poor water quality, and controversial plans to reform the electric-sector’s fee structure. Over the past year there have been more than 260 separate protests, often expressing highly-local demands such as wage increases, infrastructure development, or improved water and service provision. More recently, between November 2017 and April 2018, southern Iraq averaged 12 to 14 significant (comprising more than 150 individuals) protests per month, with large-scale electricity-related demonstrations concentrated around Nasiriyah, Basra, Samawah, and Rumaitha. By June, the region experienced at least one protest each day, focusing on clean water, employment, infrastructure development, and sufficient electricity.

Current protests amplified these grievances. Some analysts have speculated that Iran seeks to leverage demonstrations to disrupt Iraqi oil export, while others blame political actors like Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr—who emerged with the greatest share of votes in May’s parliamentary elections—for fomenting instability. These explanations, however, do not adequately explain how southern Iraq reached this crisis-point. A case in point is Basra, where demonstrations originated. The region encapsulates much of the anger felt by southern Iraqis, as well as the sources of instability driving July’s demonstrations: 15 years after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it remains without sufficient electricity, water, healthcare, educational, or other basic services despite vast oil wealth.

The Iraqi government, of course, cannot afford long-term instability in the south. Basra’s oilfields and Persian Gulf export terminal account for approximately 95 percent of the country’s GDP and its only sea-access. The region sent tens of thousands of young men to fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), many of whom are now returning home with their weapons. Yet, many Iraqi political leaders took southern Iraq’s relative stability for granted, ignoring steadily growing political volatility, economic malaise, and deep public anger against both provincial and national politicians. During the May 2018 parliamentary elections, only 14.4 percent of Basra’s eligible voters went to the polls (compared to a still-dismal 44.5 percent nationally), a figure that underscored the region’s sense of dislocation from Baghdad and ongoing desires among the population for increased autonomy from the federal government.

Southern Iraq’s Economic Seesaw

Given its location and natural resource wealth, Basra could be Iraq’s wealthiest and most secure province. It has remained relatively immune from ISIS activity and is home to the country’s only ports and most productive oilfields. High oil prices between 2010 and 2014 fueled a period of rapid development that seemed to presage a stable future. By 2013, Basra city boasted new restaurants, movie theaters, and shopping malls visited by families looking to spend newly-acquired income from oil-sector jobs. In January 2014, the price of a typical 1,200 square-foot property in central Basra reached $1 million, while rent averaged $2,000 per month. Rapid socioeconomic transformations pushed many poorer residents to rapidly-growing slums on the city’s under-developed outskirts.

This growth, however, belied endemic corruption jeopardizing emerging prosperity. Flush with cash from a booming oil sector, the Baghdad government paid billions of dollars to international oil companies between 2010 and 2014 to incentivize expansion into southern Iraq. A significant portion of these funds was siphoned into “protection fees” to pay local armed groups linked to powerful tribal organizations. This extortive economy subsidized Basra’s tribal and militia groups, as tribal leaders cemented influence by securing provincial ministry jobs for their members. By late 2013, Basrawi officials estimated that armed groups controlled 62 floating docks used for oil export and smuggling, while nine separate “security services” operated at the port to extract bribes and fees from contractors, civil administrators, and international firms.

During this post-2010 expansion period, during which southern Iraqi oilfields boosted production by nearly 80 percent, the average cost of a bribe increased to keep pace with available revenue. Many international and Basrawi businesses considered “corruption” a necessary budget-item, and most preferred to pay militias rather than manage threats from their fighters. With generous subsidies from Baghdad and growing export volume incentivizing waste, many groups—which in 2009 had regularly accepted $100 protection fees from oil contractors and local businesses—by 2014 demanded upward of $10,000 for “permission” to continue or expand operations. Graft manifested in logistical and economic networks, as contractors were obliged to purchase supplies like cement, steel, or piping from tribal organizations at two or three times the market price.

When oil prices collapsed in mid-to-late 2014, this fragile balance of corruption, bribery, and security undergirding Basra’s oil-fueled growth deteriorated. Government subsidies ceased as oil-revenue dropped by nearly 50 percent, fueling escalatory violence between tribal groups competing for access to a dwindling client base. Meanwhile, oil-sector contractors in Basra reportedly laid off between 30 and 80 percent of their employees by early 2017, emptying entire migrant labor settlements and leaving thousands of Basrawis without stable income.

Movement and Mobilization

Basra’s whiplash from this growth and subsequent decline coincided with a period of accelerated demographic movement across southern Iraq as rural populations from agricultural areas moved into the city’s low-income outskirts. Over the past decade, large swaths of agricultural land in Basra, Dhi Qar, Muthanna, and Maysan provinces have become infertile due to deteriorating water supplies and rising salinity. In late 2014, for example, an Iraqi government survey indicated that 97 percent of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Muthanna and 80 percent of IDPs in Dhi Qar cited drought as the primary cause for their displacement, with similar figures for rural areas in Basra Province. By late 2017, rural southern families were at the greatest risk for food insecurity of any region in Iraq.

Rural emigration strained capacity in Basra and other southern cities to house and provide essential services for a rapidly-growing low-income population concentrated in an archipelago of informal settlements. Today, Basrawi taps often spit out water too salty for brushing teeth as desalinization facilities struggle to handle growing urban demands. Meanwhile, decreased water flow through the Euphrates and Shatt al-Arab Rivers—a result of dam construction in Turkey—has allowed seawater from the Persian Gulf to seep into freshwater watersheds. Basra provincial authorities reported a total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration (a measure of water quality in milligrams of non-water molecules present per liter of water) in 2004 of 3,000; by July 2018, that figure had risen to 17,000. The maximum TDS for safe drinking water is 500.

Water quality also exacerbates other regional issues, including insufficient power generation. For example, electrical power plants and oil refineries that require a steady supply of fresh water to spin their turbines curtailed operations from July 5-7 after the Shatt al-Arab’s salt content exceeded operable levels—further exacerbating power outages across the region and inciting grievances against Baghdad and provincial authorities.

Growing slums have also provided militia and criminal organizations with a reliable and growing recruitment source. Since 2014, many armed groups operating inside Basra and surrounding areas merged with the Popular Mobilization organization, a move that afforded legal cover, additional weapons, and new funding streams. As militias consolidated gains after 2014, stability in Basra deteriorated. Late that year, the Iraqi Army’s 14th Division and a Federal Police Battalion responsible for security in Basra redeployed to defend Baghdad from ISIS, leaving only nine incomplete police battalions and an under-strength army battalion to secure the province of approximately 4.7 million people. The security vacuum resulted in a dramatic increase of armed robberies, resurgent tribal clashes, and organized crime (such as drug trafficking).

Insecurity has worsened as thousands of Basrawi PMU fighters return home from the battlefield against ISIS. These veterans overwhelm Basra’s ailing public health system; in an effort to expand the number of post-surgical beds, for example, the Health Ministry repurposed one of Saddam Hussein’s decrepit former palaces into a prosthesis and physiotherapy clinic. The majority of these returnees rely on government pensions and social security payouts that Baghdad can increasingly ill-afford. Meanwhile, financial strain has created new potential sources of local conflict in a highly militarized environment, fueling violent tribal disputes. Over the past several years, some landlords have demanded higher rent payments from families with relatives in the PMU, fueling widespread resentment at Baghdad’s inability to support veterans or their families.

In February 2018, a rapid intensification of tribal and militia-related violence over dwindling water, agricultural, and employment resources prompted Baghdad to launch a major security operation to restore stability, halt tribal violence, and quell ongoing unrest in the south. The operation comprised approximately 20,000 soldiers from the Iraqi Army, Special Forces, Federal Police, and assorted local and paramilitary units. While an increased military presence in Basra temporarily halted clashes, by June 2018 rates of violence had surpassed January levels in Basra, Dhi Qar, and Diwaniya—highlighting Baghdad’s failure to monopolize the use of government force across the southern region. Recent security deployments to quell demonstrations comprising six Emergency Response Division and three elite Counter-Terrorism battalions are thus likely unable to bring sustained stability.

Potential for a Dangerous Crisis

Years of insufficient services, institutionalized corruption, environmental degradation, and insecurity has left Basrawis—as well as their neighbors across southern Iraq—with few outlets for anger other than protest. Baghdad and provincial politicians have offered few long-term solutions. On July 15, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced a series of measures to assuage protester demands that included additional financial allocations to desalinate water and increase water quotas in Basra, Dhi Qar, Muthanna, and Diwaniya. Three days earlier, the Iraqi Oil Ministry pledged to create 10,000 new jobs—an announcement met with justified incredulity on the streets of Basra.

Such half-measures ignore the roots of instability in southern Iraq and fail to provide long-term or economically sustainable reforms. By contrast, critical efforts to boost southern Iraq’s desalination capacities, like the $7 billion Common Seawater Supply Project (CSSP), remain ensnared in bureaucratic red tape. Troublingly, the current caretaker government, already mired in negotiations to form a governing coalition after the May elections, has few incentives to pursue long-term development now. Instead, political elites may resort to time-tested methods of protest resolution, combining co-option (buying protesters off with promises of jobs) and coercion. It is dubious whether such an approach can succeed in southern Iraq, following years of official neglect. Without more thorough government engagement to address the problems facing southern regions, current grievance could presage greater instability.

Matthew Schweitzer is a Research Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, where he focuses on Iraq and Persian Gulf security. He tweets @PostWarWatch.

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/protests-southern-iraq-intensify-is-instability-to-follow/feed/0On the Ground in Yemen: Q&A with Farea al-Muslimihttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/on-the-ground-in-yemen-qa-with-farea-al-muslimi/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/on-the-ground-in-yemen-qa-with-farea-al-muslimi/#respondMon, 23 Jul 2018 14:26:46 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18014]]>As the battle for the port of Hodeidah continues to intensify, the worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen has raised further alarm, particularly for its impact on the young. The increase in violence has laid more bare the regional rivalries that are exacerbating it and has made the aim of the new United Nations Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, to rekindle peace talks a challenging goal.

For its part, the UN has continued its efforts to work towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict. The UN Special Envoy visited Sanaa recently and expressed confidence that a deal could be reached. Last month, as the fighting around Hodeidah began, the co-founder and chairman of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, Farea al-Muslimi, was in New York after his own visit to Yemen. He sat down with the Global Observatory editor Samir Ashraf to describe the reality in the country and the prospects for a settlement of the conflict.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

What are things like on the ground in Yemen now? Walk us through your recent trip, what did you do while there? How did you get in and out?

Politically there is an absolute deadlock. Diplomacy has basically stopped and nothing has been done to relaunch negotiations, whether through the UN or through other routes.

Obviously, in terms of healthcare provision and the humanitarian situation there has been an extreme escalation. There is the pushover battle at Hodeidah port, the last main port of food, aid, and trade getting into Yemen. Of course, pushing the battle towards Hodeidah will be an extreme nightmare for humanitarians, businessmen, and for life in general, especially in the north under the Houthis. Unfortunately, there is less pushback now from NGOs, human rights groups, aid organizations, and some Western countries.

Why do you think there is less pushback?

Many reasons. One is that the Saudis are determined and there is less ability to actually persuade them to change course. Two, the Houthi escalation and their battle with their allies has made them much weaker politically, despite their military and security strength.

In terms of the consequences of this lack of pushback? Yemen is becoming increasingly cut off, and the port of Hodeidah is not the only problem. We have some airports, for example, that have been shut down for two years. You only have Hadhramaut or Aden airports open, and for three airplanes. Three airplanes serving 27 million people. So if you want to get in or out of Yemen—which is especially a problem if you are sick or need medical attention—you have to drive 25 hours and pass over 128 road checkpoints through Sanaa, Dhamar, Bayda, Marib, Hadhramaut, and onwards.

Is that how you went in? Who is manning these checkpoints?

Yes, and also how I went out.

Different groups man different checkpoints. For example, there are some in the Houthi areas that are under the Houthis—there were 52 of these—and some under the internationally recognized government, like at the first checkpoint at Marib. Then there’s others under the national army, and others still under different groups fighting the Houthis.

The checkpoints are a major obstacle to people getting in and out of the country. If those manning just one of them decides you cannot cross, you are truly stuck. Very few people can fly out of Yemen on a plane. This land route exists because of the lack of other ways to get in and out. It points to a lack of management and also to the fact that the conflict is not being resolved.

The impact of these obstacles—the lack of movement within the country, aid being cut off, fighting between groups—is far-reaching, even in previously “good” areas. In Sanaa, for example, you now have much more hunger, you see people in the street with clean clothes like yours and mine who are beggars in the streets. This tells you that these people were previously fine, relatively speaking, they have just been pushed to the edge. At this point, it has been 19 months since salaries were paid to 1.2 million public sector workers. By our calculations these 1.2 million supported a further six million Yemenis. Basically, the last group of Yemenis who were not hungry or in a humanitarian crisis have reached that in the last year.

What about outside of cities? Has this also been the case there?

What I described is more true in the Houthi-controlled areas—which is somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of the country and where the absence of salaries has done more harm—but also in other places too. Basically, a decision was made to halt salary payments for government workers and then to blame the Houthis for it, to push the people against them. This has not worked. If there is one group that is actually getting richer in Sanaa it is the Houthis.

The salary decision was the best thing that could happen for the Houthis in terms of recruitment since the main motive for people to fight is economic. The Houthis have used the trick where they pay people in the front lines. They don’t pay you your salary at home, they pay you at the front line. So, since people need money, they turn to the Houthis and fight for them.

Another major issue is the black market. If you look at the war economy, which is something we have studied closely at the Sanaa Center, there is trafficking in fuel, weapons, and goods that everyone has a share in, from [President Abdrabbuh Mansur] Hadi’s sons to the brothers of Abdel-Malek al-Houthi. Looking at this black market is important because it is rare point where all the warring sides meet, which can be an opportunity to make peace more feasible.

What impact have the sanctions had on the black market? Do you think sanctions should be lifted?

In 2014, the idea of having sanctions made some sense. You want to hold those responsible for what was happening in Yemen accountable. Sanctions work well for someone like [Ali Abdullah] Saleh who had money outside Yemen, but not so much for the Houthis since they still work in cash. How do you sanction someone, who never leaves Yemen, with a travel ban? From this perspective the sanctions were a bit naïve.

What was ultimately missing from the whole sanctions process was an understanding of the context. We sanction Saleh, but some countries in the region continue supporting him. If these countries hadn’t, we wouldn’t need sanctions to change behavior.

I think we have a very good sanctions model in Iran and we should use it in Yemen. That model says conditional, gradual, incremental removal. You behave better—whether you’re Saleh’s son, or Hadi, or Abdel-Malek al-Houthi—then some restrictions are removed. That way you can improve buy-in for peace in Yemen.

Right now, sanctions don’t fulfill peace purposes. The sanctions were made for the idea of sanctions, not for the idea of peace. Things have changed since Saleh was killed, and again we need regional buy-in. If we have the regional buy-in, we are fine with sanctions or without sanctions. So that will be something we have to rethink as we move ahead in any new peace process or thought process. Any conversation on removing or adding sanctions, cannot and should not happen without an understanding of the context. It should happen in the larger context of any peace “package”—a new UN resolution, commitments, regional understanding, and P5 support for peace in Yemen.

What are the possibilities for a halt or end to the conflict? What do you think is needed from regional actors to reach a ceasefire? What do you think of Iran calling for a ceasefire?

Iran is not pushing for a ceasefire and is not going to push for one. They are very happy with how things are in Yemen. From Iran’s perspective they are actually “winning”—they throw one dollar, the Saudis throw one million dollars. In fact, Iran has nothing to lose in Yemen compared to in Iraq, Lebanon, or Syria, which is contrast to the Saudis. So for now it is not in their interest to pursue peace, except in relation to the Iran deal with the US. I think their behavior in Yemen is more likely to change than in other places if keeping the deal or negotiating a different deal were offered in exchange.

I think three things need to happen for peace in Yemen. One, we will need understanding between the Saudis and Iran specifically on Yemen. Start with that, because both have an interest there and both can be convinced on the issue.

The second is about the UN process, which as faulty and as problematic as it is, and as misguided as it has been, is the only framework for peace between Yemenis themselves. The UN will need to pass a new resolution, in my opinion, that commits to peace. [Security Council] Resolution 2216 is, fundamentally, a war resolution. It has the provision that power cannot be taken by force—which is important and should be kept in another resolution—but ultimately it justifies the war, it does not push for peace.

The third is about the problems that started this war, which we keep forgetting about because of where we are now. This means examining the regional divisions that have impacted the economic development and investment in peace in Yemen, as opposed to war, on the part of other Gulf countries. Also, issues and discontent in Yemen were largely ignored by international actors and the UN in favor of Syria and Libya. Now, at least, we have a UN envoy who is more credible in the eyes of the Houthis, with more access. We should build on this.

I think if there is one overall lesson it is in relation to a question I usually get from diplomats. They ask, “What is one thing we should do to solve the war Yemen?” I say, “Don’t try to ‘solve it’ because that is based on a very short-sighted timeframe.” Peace takes time. It takes longer than a war and we need to it a shot. If we avoid short-sightedness then we avoid raising expectations and falling flat, which drains hope and backfires.

Much of what we hear about Yemen is negative, what are the positive signs that you see?

The bad news is that we have never seen anything like this war before. Eighteen countries, even more, are involved in it. The good news is—if it is even good news—that from a conflict resolution point of view, Yemenis are not new to wars. We are not new like people in Syria or other countries. Yemenis know how to manage conflicts and violence. Thus, in my opinion, whenever other countries—a coalition, the Iranians, or whoever—are ready for peace, it is possible and can happen quickly.

If you could share one story or description of Yemen, what would it be?

The true story of Yemen is not of a humanitarian crisis. Right now, there is a serious humanitarian crisis, but that is not its story. This crisis is happening because of political decisions to keep it. It is ultimately a political crisis. Framing it as a humanitarian crisis is an apology for not doing the serious work to end it. This is a solvable crisis. It just needs a little bit of understanding.

]]>https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/on-the-ground-in-yemen-qa-with-farea-al-muslimi/feed/0Political Gap in Reform Agenda Leaves Questions on A4P Mechanismshttps://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/political-gap-reform-agenda-questions-a4p-mechanisms/
https://theglobalobservatory.org/2018/07/political-gap-reform-agenda-questions-a4p-mechanisms/#respondThu, 19 Jul 2018 13:51:15 +0000https://theglobalobservatory.org/?p=18004]]>Multilateral reform initiatives can be interesting for one of two reasons. Some generate fresh ideas about how states should cooperate. Others inspire governments to invest politically in pre-existing ideas. It is quite rare for states to act on completely new ideas straight away—even the diplomats who negotiated the United Nations Charter in 1945 cribbed a lot of concepts from the League of Nations.

If the current Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) initiative has any impact, it will be on the “political investment” front rather than in the “new ideas” category. This is not a bad thing. There has been a surfeit of thinking about peace operations in the last five years or so. The 2015 High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) and ensuing studies such as this year’s Cruz report on military aspects of peacekeeping have said pretty much all that needs to be said in conceptual terms.

These studies have also established a reasonably coherent narrative of what UN operations need to do to perform better. This involves: (i) a greater focus on political solutions to conflicts; (ii) a more rigorous approach to protecting civilians under imminent threat of violence; and (iii) more investment in “sustaining peace” (aka peacebuilding) over the longer term. Analysts and officials differ over the exact balance of priorities, and some influential dissenting states such as Russia insist that the UN should stick to traditional visions of peacekeeping. But the politics-protection-peacebuilding triad is now the conventional policy wisdom in New York.

The UN has made some progress in translating this emerging consensus into practice. The secretariat has partnered with the World Bank on funding for sustaining peace. Civilian and military officials in field operations have used the Cruz report’s findings on peacekeepers’ performance to push troops to become more active. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has persuaded the UN membership to endorse a reorganization of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), Department of Political Affairs (DPA), and Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) that should—bureaucratic politics permitting—boost joined-up thinking at headquarters.

But despite these advances on policy, UN officials and New York-based diplomats still sense that there is a political gap at the heart of the reform agenda.

There is a general recognition that the biggest challenges facing UN operations today—from securing contested election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to forging a unity government in Libya—cannot be resolved by tweaking operational mechanisms alone. Improving peacekeeping patrols in South Sudan will not be enough to reconcile its perennially divided leaders. As Secretary-General Guterres warned the Security Council in March, UN member states need to give missions more genuine top-level political support to have any chance of success.

This is where A4P comes in. The underlying goal of the exercise is to raise the political profile of the issues raised by HIPPO, Cruz, and other UN reviews to the point where heads of state take notice and invest some real political capital in making UN operations work. On the basis of a series of broad consultations with diplomats in New York this summer, DPKO and the Department of Field Support (DFS) have prepared a set of “draft commitments” for leaders to endorse at a side-event at the UN General Assembly in New York this September. These commitments emphasize all the elements of the politics-protection-peacebuilding triad, under seven headings:

To advance political solutions and enhance the political impact of peacekeeping;

To strengthen the protection provided by peacekeeping operations;

To improve the safety and security of peacekeepers;

To support effective performance and accountability by all peacekeeping components;

To strengthen the peacebuilding impact of peacekeeping;

To improve peacekeeping partnerships (with the African Union, etc.);

To strengthen the conduct of peacekeeping operations and personnel.

So far, so familiar: some lines are pulled from earlier UN documents. But conceptual innovation is not the point. Getting top-level political buy-in is. There is a long history of member states endorsing peacekeeping reform proposals in principle, but then failing to follow up politically in practice. The September A4P summit offers a platform for leaders to recognize their responsibilities for UN missions, at least rhetorically.

To this end, Secretary-General Guterres—a former prime minister with an instinctive sense of what senior political figures can consume—has insisted the commitment statement should be brief. The current draft runs to three pages. Will leaders buy it?

The notion that prime ministers and presidents should devote much time to public discussions of UN peace operations is quite a recent one. The Security Council convened at a heads of government level for the first time in 1992 and requested Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to draft his “Agenda for Peace.” But this was mainly because Council members thought it necessary to invite Russian President Boris Yeltsin to New York to underline that Russia had inherited the USSR’s permanent seat. The then-secretary-general’s text was largely window-dressing for this diplomatic formality.

There was no comparable top-level inter-governmental event to endorse the “Brahimi report” in 2000. While there was flurry of small peacekeeping reform initiatives in 2009—stemming from a major crisis in the eastern DRC that year—these were mainly exercises for policy officials. A few foreign ministers were involved at most.

The idea of kicking peacekeeping operations up to a higher level largely lies during the second term of US President Barack Obama. Obama convened a discussion of peacekeeping with major troop contributors at the 2009 General Assembly but—perhaps because the president found some of his fellow leaders’ stem-winding speeches tedious—there was no real follow up until 2014. That year, US Vice President Joe Biden led a discussion of boosting peacekeeping forces, paving the way for a bigger pledging conference on the margins of the 2015 General Assembly led by President Obama himself.

This was a somewhat surreal event. Presidents and prime ministers had a few minutes each to offer soldiers, aircraft, and even canine units to the blue helmets. Some seemed well-informed about the issues at stake. Others just wanted to share the stage with Obama (and there was some consternation when he left half way through). But if this was political theater, it worked. As Alison Giffen notes, the 2015 session and succeeding defense ministerials in London and Vancouver generated promises of 50,000 new personnel. Thanks to the Obama process, British medics and engineers have built a hospital in South Sudan, Portuguese commandos have deployed to the Central African Republic, and Salvadorean helicopters patrol in Mali.

The A4P meeting this September takes the model of top-level engagement on peacekeeping pioneered by Obama, but shifts the focus from force generation to politics and policy issues. Secretary-General Guterres may not quite have the political pulling power of Barack Obama, but he can expect a reasonable turnout of leaders interested in peacekeeping to participate. DPKO and DFS are working closely with member states on preparing the event—a cross-regional group of ten states including Security Council members and major troop contributors have helped shepherd consultations on the summit declaration—and a good cross-section of African, Asian, European, and Latin American leaders should show up on the day.

But a few difficult questions still hang over the event. There is, for example, some concern about the participants list. Will US President Donald Trump drop by, and if he does, what will he say? US officials have been broadly supportive of A4P to date, and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley persuaded Trump to attend an event on secretariat reform with Secretary-General Guterres last year. But after Trump’s disruptive performance at this month’s NATO summit, other leaders may worry about what he might say or do if given the chance to opine on A4P.

Equally, or even more importantly, will China lend the initiative its support or keep its distance? President Xi Jinping stole the show in 2015 by offering 8,000 new peacekeepers to new UN missions, although getting them on the ground remains a work in progress. Xi does not usually attend the General Assembly, but other leaders and diplomats will still be keen to know if China endorses A4P, especially as Beijing has recently signaled skepticism about UN missions’ work in domains such as human rights promotion. Chinese diplomats have nonetheless engaged seriously in discussions of the A4P draft declaration, and may decide that they have an interest in positioning themselves as champions of more effective peacekeeping.

Getting the September A4P event right will consume a lot of time and diplomatic energy over the next two months. But even bigger questions loom over what will happen once the participating leaders have come and gone. In formal terms, all the meeting will produce is a political declaration that does not bind either its endorsers or those that stay away. Diplomats favorable to the process have considered giving the text a formal status by welcoming it in a Security Council or General Assembly resolution before the end of the year. Russia may well query a full-scale council resolution endorsing the initiative. But there may be ways—such as an exchange of letters between Secretary-General Guterres and the president of the Security Council—to give A4P some credence. A broadly-worded General Assembly resolution acknowledging the declaration could also give it some extra weight moving forward.

The exact political meaning of A4P thus remains up for negotiations. A related problem is what, if any, mechanisms the countries that endorse A4P can engineer to encourage follow-up on the declaration. It was relatively easy to follow up on the Obama summit in 2015, as participants made quite specific pledges of forces that were fairly easy to track. By contrast, the A4P agenda embraces a number of policy issues and promises of political support that are harder to monitor and evaluate.

When a leader says that they will “commit to stronger engagement to advance political solutions to conflict and to pursue complementary political objectives and strategies,” what will that mean in practice? Is there a way for states to assess each other’s actions on A4P commitments without causing excessive diplomatic pain?

Nobody wants to create a complex or time-consuming reporting system to track A4P. The best option would be to find light-weight mechanisms that would still compel member states to focus on follow up to the September declaration. The simplest way to proceed would be for countries that endorse the A4P declaration to report voluntarily and independently on their steps to fulfill it, using platforms like Security Council thematic debates on peacekeeping. But such an ad hoc approach could lose momentum quite quickly, demanding a more structured approach. Options include:

A Group of Friends, or “High Ambition Coalition” (similar to inter-governmental groupings created to pursue parts of the SDGs) to act as a forum for member states excited by A4P to report on follow-up and share ideas;

The appointment of an A4P Rapporteur by those who endorse the summit declaration—a senior political figure with a mandate to assess and report on the implementation of the commitments agreed in September;

A field-up approach, by which UN mission leaders should engage with representatives of pro-A4P countries—such as ambassadors, development officials and, within UN missions, contingent commanders—to apply the initiatives’ principles on the ground, operationally, and diplomatically.

One potential milestone for tracking progress on A4P will come in March, when the UN will host another ministerial conference to follow up on the Obama initiative on force generation. This could also be a platform for further discussions of A4P, linking the two processes. Under any circumstances, most of the impetus for advancing on the A4P agenda will have to come from within states themselves. But quibbling about the long-term future of A4P may miss the immediate point of the exercise. At a time when the UN’s members are irredeemably divided on many security issues, Secretary-General Guterres still has a chance to pull together a posse of leaders to reaffirm that blue helmet operations matter this September. The political signal alone matters.

Richard Gowan is a Senior Fellow at the United Nations University’s Centre for Policy Research.